Friday, 11 April 2014

The Algae Group Blog
website is ready for news! I am writing these lines during the last hour of an
overnight flight from Atlanta (GA, USA) to Santiago de Chile. Together with
Teresa Tymon, MSc student of my long-time friend and collaborator Carl J.
Carrano (San Diego State University), I have been travelling close to 20 h
since leaving San Diego early last morning, via Salt Lake City and Atlanta. The
last leg from Atlanta followed a route along the west coast of Florida, across
Cuba, Panama, SW Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, a bit of the Pacific, and then into
Chile.

I have spent 2 weeks
visiting Carl and my other friends and collaborators in southern California –
in particular, Dan Reed,
Eric Hessell
and Alison Butler at UC
Santa Barbara (and special thanks to Glyn and Jean Pritchard for their
hospitality). Ever since I was a postdoc with Alison Butler at UCSB (2001-2003),
this used to be an important part of life – I used to come back almost every
spring since then, for 2 appointments as visiting professor at UC Santa
Barbara, the PhD of Cliff Ross,
and, of course, the many years of collaboration with Carl in San Diego.
However, due to increased activities in the Eastern Mediterranean and South
Atlantic, I had not been back since March 2010 – it was time to reinvigorate my
California ties.

Later today, Teresa
and I will be met at ECIM (Estación Costiera de
Investigaciones Marinas) in Las Cruces (about the same latitude as Santiago on
the long Chilean coastline) by Pedro Murua Andrade, my new Chilean PhD student.
In 4 days’ time, we will be joined by Melina Marcou (Dept. of Fisheries and
Marine Research, Cyprus Government).

The objectives of this
trip are to explore 2 features the world’s largest seaweed, giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera), which is abundant
along much of the Chilean coast, but also in California, the Falkland Islands
and other parts of the world. Firstly, we are trying to get new insight into the
halogen (in particular, iodine) metabolism in Macrocystis. While the North Atlantic kelp Laminaria digitata is well explored in this respect and known to be
the strongest iodine accumulator in life, impacting atmospheric processes
through its emissionsof molecular
iodine (I2). Secondly, we (in particular, Pedro) are interested in
the pathogens infecting gametophytes of Macrocystis.
The work is funded by the EU project
ASSEMBLE (www.assemblemarine.org)
and CONICYT (the Chilean national research council).

Our time in Chile will
be concluded by 5 days in Easter Island, one of the remotest islands on Planet
Earth – diving included. I teach island biogeography and conservation at
Aberdeen, and I am hoping to get some inspiration for these lectures which have
become quite popular among the students from visiting the textbook example of a
ruined island ecosystem.